This is the update I never really wanted to write. I always hoped one day to have a happy family reunion picture to share with you all, a few quick words about courage and perseverance and then put this chapter behind me. Despite all the courage and perseverance Seema Kalia has displayed, we still seem stuck at the same place. I spoke with Seema recently to try and find out why despite all her efforts, she remains blocked at every turn.

I wrote about this case two years ago, already a year into this atrocious miscarriage of justice for Seema and her children. Three years in total since she last saw her children. As awful as that already sounds, it is still a little abstract. Think of it as six birthdays missed, three Mother’s days gone past, and countless other milestones parents get to experience without being able to contact her children. As someone who lost his mother to cancer when I was young, I feel great sadness for this lost time.

Apparently I was being hilariously naive though, thinking that the people not directly involved in the abduction would be as disgusted as I was with the immorality of these acts and want to see her children returned as soon as humanly or legally possible. Why I was so full of optimism despite being a natural pessimist is beyond me. So why have we come so far without this massive wrong being righted? Because we have people still playing politics with an issue of justice and human decency.

Not that she hasn’t had good people on her side. By all accounts she has had talented and honourable public officials and government employees fighting for the rights of her and her children. There were many legal aid lawyers who tried to help before being intimidated by the targets, and many sympathetic friends doing whatever they can for her. What she needs now is for the United States Federal Government to step in (or more likely step aside) and let the DOJ bring these cases out, allow them to drop this stifling secrecy so Seema can be reunited with her kids (and I can publish a much nicer update with happy reunion photos). Seema has worked hard and suffered much, it is time the government took up this heavy burden that should always have been theirs to bare and make things right.

It isn’t like it is news to the Department Of Justice that this has happened. They have already laid the corruption of the New York Justice System at the feet of former Speaker of the New York State Assembly, Sheldon Silver. Having federal corruption charges filed against him in January of 2015 and subsequently resigning his position as Speaker, Silver still awaits trial. With the indictment of former NY Senate Majority leader Dean Skelos’ (and his son Adam), it is clear to most that the big fish, Gov Andrew Cuomo is the last felon standing.

According to Seema, Cuomo instructed Manhattan D.A., Cy Vance Jr. to arrange the retaliatory abduction of Seema’s kids through a new and dodgy judge named Gesmer. In addition to any number of Wall St. bankers and the law firm Wachtell Lipton, it is unknown how many arrests need to be made before the DoJ agrees to return Seema’s children to her after her three years of torment after having served as a Federal whistleblower.

Now more than ever is the time for any and all of us to help Seema cross this final hurdle. Seema’s son, Dravin turns 9 on August 24th. He and his sister, Lola were taken two days before his sixth birthday. Seema has not been able to see either of them grow into the incredible people they will no doubt become for the past three long years. We need to see her be at Dravin’s 9th birthday party.

If you have contacts in the U.S. Senate, Congress or The White House or the media, please forward this post to them and ask them to contact the DoJ and demand answers about this unspeakably abusive legal decision making. The DoJ may be tethered by White House staff looking to make an opportune media splash, so if you have a phone number for someone on the White House staff, now would be a great time to call them and help be part of making the world a better place.

(This is me mercilessly mocking a bad movie as I watch it. If you have ever seen MST3K or a Rifftracks then you get the idea. The only obvious difference is this is in print form instead of over audio because I am too cheap to buy a microphone. Obviously a recent viewing of the movie will help, let me know if you think timecodes would improve this or you have a better idea.)

“A fuckload of time ago an ancient alien race found a way to harness the emerald energy of Taco Bell farts.”

“In order to be chosen by the ring, one needed to have box office bankability and be a little bit of the eye candy for the ladies”.

“These poorly CGI’d spunk puppets would make up The Green Lantern Corp.” Which you probably won’t understand or give a shit about until half way through the movie.

If you crash landed in the Lost Sector…it really isn’t all that lost anymore. You have crash landed in the Found Sector. Stick a flag in something.

“Please send help to the Lost Sector immediately, I would send coordinates but I am sure you can find it. Second left past the IHOP.”

They made a big deal about how the most powerful evil in the known universe was imprisoned by the Green Lanterns but not only can he still use his powers but all it takes to escape is consuming the fear of three aliens (which he does with NO TROUBLE). Andy Dufresne had a harder time getting out of Shawshank.

He wasn’t so much imprisoned as mildly inconvenienced.

Six Months Later…in a Sector that isn’t lost.

“Your rescue mission is canceled because everyone on the planet is dead. I sent you a voicemail an hour ago.”

You communicate through the power of your magical, willpower spewing rings. Why the fuck is there TV static?

This is the guy you imprisoned the last time and he SPANKED YOUR ASS in a 2 minute fight scene. Did he have a cold or something before?

Why the fuck are all the windows in the escape pod pointed backwards? Wouldn’t it be better to see where you are going? I mean, if you are on the escape pod, you have clearly crashed at least one ship today.

Wrapping a brick in newspaper while driving at high speeds…like a boss!

“This AI controlled fighter jet has all the flying and combat capabilities of a human pilot, but it is as aerodynamic as a brick.”

Jesus…Andy Dufresne actually showed up. He is a senator now. Good for him.

Locker room scene, I think this scene is supposed to be rife with sexual tension and years of emotional baggage…but it fails miserably because we haven’t known either of these characters for more than 5 minutes.

“I am going to fly straight up until my plane shits itself and plummets to earth taking me on a rocket ride to an early grave…that will really show those completely computerized jets who the fucking boss is.”

I mean, isn’t the point of AI driven jets to prevent the death of pilots? Why would a suicidal test flight be a win?

Also, why the fuck didn’t the AI’s just stop and wait for his dumb ass to come back down? They could certainly be programmed to not chase stupid fucks into the upper atmosphere until their engines stalled.

QUICK, WE NEED BACKSTORY!!! Starting flashback in 3…2…1.

“Keep my aviator jacket warm for me, son…maybe fart in it a few times.”

So let me get this straight. Hal’s father was also a test pilot. Father dies in fiery crash while kid watches. Kid becomes a stew of psychological problems but becomes a daredevil test pilot for the exact same company despite freezing up and having flashbacks in stressful situations…HOW THE FUCK IS THIS GUY ALLOWED TO FLY ANYTHING MORE IMPRESSIVE THAN SOMETHING OPERATED BY FEEDING IT QUARTERS OUTSIDE A GROCERY STORE.

“My dad died in a fiery plane crash while I watched…after many years of counselling I was able to put it behind me and become a florist.” – that is how that story goes!

“I cost the company three of their multi-million dollar planes and a big, fat government contract so I could Chuck Norris my way through a simple training exercise. The company will now go under but it was totally worth almost dying. Everyone knows what kind of unemployed badass I am now. Those high school girls at the mini donut place in the mall are going to LOSE THIER SHIT.”

I think if you are a test pilot and you crash three planes, almost die and have to eject in the middle of a SIMULATED BATTLE, that doesn’t so much make you a badass AS JUST INCOMPETENT. I mean, I see what you are trying to do movie, it just isn’t working.

Alien crash lands on the coast of a major city at sunset and NO ONE IS AROUND? No one noticed it as it clearly streaked across the sky while the sun was still up and stopped by the beach to check it out?

“Despite the pain I must move my hand in to a more photogenic position before I tell the ring to start the selection process.”

So if the brick he was wrapping earlier is for this birthday party then why was he in a rush to wrap it in the car ON THE WAY TO WORK? He wasn’t late for the party yet, he could have wrapped it at ANY FUCKING TIME AFTER THE DOGFIGHT.

Are you…going to introduce us to his family, movie? I assume he didn’t wander in to a stranger’s birthday party and just start drinking milk out of the carton but I wouldn’t put it past him.

“Where is Jason?” I think the bigger questions is, WHO THE FUCK IS JASON?

Was there ANY POINT TO THAT WHOLE FUCKING BIRTHDAY PARTY SCENE?!! Hal spewed some one liners about not being afraid. Whoopity shit.

If this movie wanted to establish Hal Jordan as a badass they could have just as easily shown him cooking bacon with his shirt off.

Apparently even the movie is sick of waiting for the plot to kick in and decided to abduct the main character.

“The ring…chose…you. The reasons this guy shouldn’t be a test pilot are the same ones for why he shouldn’t be an intergalactic magical peace keeper.

Place the magical ring in the magical lantern-shaped battery, which you can find in the magical K-mart in their magical electronics section.

Why did he have the huge lantern-shaped recharge station in the escape pod. He didn’t bring it with him so it must have already been there. How bad is this guy’s driving that he keeps his valuables in the escape pod?

“You are the only one I can trust…discount version of Moss from IT Crowd.”

A bunch of those creepy kids from Akira are sitting on really tall, green thrones listening to Mark Strong talk out the script details in his head.

How does Sinestro not know who the ultimate evil is? The ultimate evil that his BEST FRIEND imprisoned at some point during his adult life? Also, WHY THE FUCK DOES ANYONE TRUST A GUY NAMED SINESTRO?!

“This is our new intergalactic peace keeper, EvilFucker. Don’t let the villain moustache fool you, he is a sweetie.”

You know what this movie needed? An utterly pointless scene of a guy playing computer chess and eating sauerkraut sandwiches. I think we have decided to forego character development in favour of just adding fuckloads of 1 dimensional characters.

Did you just add salt to your sauerkraut sandwich? Is this a stereotype for nerds that a screenwriter thought existed

Nope, it was fucking Tabasco…cause that makes more sense.

You know what, I have a heel of bread and a thing of kraut in my fridge. I am trying this shit. Report back in a couple of minutes.

Tastes EXACTLY like someone forgot to put a hot dog in it.

“Hecter Hammond, we need to ask you to come with us” –“Did Adam put you up to this?” No one currently introduced in this film is called Adam. Will we meet Adam, will we ever know his name is Adam or how he relates to any of the characters?

Apparently the director was getting some sort of bulk rate on soap opera quality actors.

“Why was I brought here to autopsy this alien?” – “As a xenobiologist you are specifically suited to the task.” – “Yes, I probably should have figured that out myself.”

Hector Hammond looks like Yanni and probably shouldn’t trusted to make his own meals let alone autopsy an alien.

The scientific method of alien autopsying appears to be to stick your fingers in the wound and wiggle that shit around.

Why did Hal’s eyes need to turn green? WHY?!!!

Why does he have two bikes and a ladder in his apartment? Why does each bike need it’s own backlighting?

“I know you bankrupted my father’s company and shattered my families dreams for the future but I thought I would put on a slinky black dress and stop by.”

You found this guy an hour ago eating sauerkraut sandwiches and now you are trusting him with top level government secrets…you deserve any and all shit that is coming your way.

How the hell has she not noticed or commented on the GIANT, GAUDY EMERALD RING ON HIS FINGER? HE KEEPS DANCING LIKE A MORON JUST TO KEEP IT IN FRAME.

You space punched a guy through a brick wall…how is that NOT going to end in a murder trail?

Apparently the movie is sick of his shit again. He has been abducted and taken to the actual plot.

Ryan Reynolds writhing around in nothing but a pair of white boxer briefs. A little thanks for sticking with us so far, ladies.

My ring decided I needed a mask, to protect my secret identity from these bug eyed aliens who don’t give a shit.

…and on that note we have reached the end of part 1 of our viewing of Green Lantern. Join us next time when some of these pointless divergent story elements FINALLY start getting pieced together into a coherent plot. (I am totally kidding, it never becomes coherent).

Time code is 41:10.

Hal spies himself in a mirror and tries out his sweet Napoleon Dynamite fight moves…

Now he is swaggering over to his reflection…I think Ryan Reynolds just forgot he was in a movie again.

“Green Lantern in the streets, Ryan Reynolds ‘tween the sheets”.

First contact with an alien species, could only have gone worse if he caught Hal masturbating to his own reflection. 5 minutes later and he probably would have.

Is this alien supposed to look like a bird or a fish…or an elderly man’s scrotum?

“Your mask will appear to make your costume look cheap and fake…and also to protect your identity from the type of people incapable of basic facial recognition.”

BAM – Alien fish dude tells him he doesn’t need the mask and it disappears. CALLED IT!

“We’re going to fly now” Fish-dude, I don’t think that is a good idea. Last time Hal flew he crashed 3 planes. Maybe he could be the Lantern that walks towards danger.

He didn’t even have a plane and he almost crashed.

“I can show you the world, Shining, shimmering, splendid, Tell me, princess, now when did, You last let your heart decide?” – Hal is in a whole new world.

“The will power of every creature in the universe charges the battery at the centre of our planet which charges the lantern you have in your apartment that in turn charges your ring. Our irrigation systems are even more convoluted and our sewers actually run backwards.”

Did anyone else notice this planet is kind of a rocky shithole? I haven’t seen any vegetation yet. All the universe to chose from and they built the home of the Green Lanterns on a barren rock with shitty lighting and no easily identifiable food sources.

Sinestro addresses the Lanterns: “Four of our brothers were killed by a being called Parallax that we don’t fully understand…despite the fact that one of our members was actually involved with capturing and imprisoning him the first time. Apparently he didn’t feel it was important enough to mention to anyone.

Training Montage!!!!

Hal has been a Green Lantern for about 10 minutes and his drill instructor has tried to straight-up murder him three times. Hal should be feeling right at home.

Now he is having a magical sword fight with Sinestro…When exactly did Hal Jordan in his previous life as a test pilot become a master swordsman? Is that required in flight school in case you have to defend a woman’s honour in the most archaic way possible?

Hal, the swords aren’t real, you can make another one for yourself too.

Sinestro beats him like a rented mule for a while which only really proves that Sinestro is a dick for picking a fight with a raw recruit. I would root for Hal but he has spent most of the movie being various degrees of a dick. I think I might start rooting for the bad guy at this point.

Little baby Lantern wanna go home to cry? Actually, after being nearly killed by the lovechild of BeBop and Rocksteady and taking a beat down by Sinestro before he basically shits all over him for gaining a ring from Sinestro’s dead friend and mentor FIFTEEN MINUTES after he becomes the first human to have contact with alien life and starts training to become a galactic peace keeper…yeah, I would peace out too.

Hal goes home to his apartment to climb his ladder to nowhere.

Hector Hammond is now rethinking his choice of dinner as the sauerkraut sandwiches make a reappearance as he teaches…something to a group of students.

SAUERKRAUT GIVES YOU TELEKINESIS?!! ALL IT GIVE ME IS GAS!

Hector is either taking a blood sample or shooting up some heroin. Either is a perfectly reasonable response to teaching at a high school.

What the…so we are an hour in and we JUST established that Hector is the son of Senator Andy Dufresne. You would think as the son of a Senator he could afford hot dogs for his kraut and tabasco.

“They chose me for this super secret alien autopsy because I am a xenobiologist with a senator for a father…it all makes sense now,” For fuck sake, Has Hector not paid any attention to his life in the past twenty years? Did he think those two government agents were just going door to door looking for someone keen to do an alien autopsy?

He is the son of a senator but the concept of nepotism seems to escape him completely.

Hal, If I wanted to see someone mope around their apartment I would install mirrors at my place.

Sinestro leads a squad of the Lanterns finest to get absolutely dick-stomped by Parallax. Meanwhile we have the riveting story of a man with telekinesis being a massive disappointment to his senator father and an unemployed test pilot being kind of depressed in his apartment. The tone of this movie is ALL OVER THE FUCKING PLACE.

So the 4 foot tall powder blue people who created and maintain the Green Lantern Corps AND the planet Oa have known all about what this evil is for the last 58 minutes and 38 seconds and FINALLY decide to tell the guy actually in charge of stopping it?

WHAT THE FUCK?!!! So they plan on fighting the monster made up of fear energy by making a shitty yellow lantern ring of fear energy…because a giant monster that can consume worlds has a lot to be afraid of (like cholesterol maybe?).

One hour into the damn movie and Hector and Hal finally end up in the same room only for us to find out THEY HAVE KNOWN EACH OTHER ALL ALONG!

We just sort of randomly ended up at a cocktail party…

Oh, they managed to win the contract for the robot jet fighters. We are well on our way to Skynet taking over. That obviously deserves apple martinis and crab puffs.

Hector uses his mind powers to throw a beer tap into the back rotor of his father’s helicopter…because just destroying the rotor seems like too much effort? Also, probably not a good idea to be standing 20 feet from a helicopter you are going to make crash.

Helicopter with spinning blades full-on crashes into a party and doesn’t cause an instant blood bath of headless people? I call bullshit.

“I shall use my magic ring powers to turn this crashing helicopter into a hot wheels car on one of their loop de loop tracks, because just stopping it would be too straight forward.”

“…and Hector’s cranium grew 2 sizes that day.”

Discount Moss stopped by…I actually don’t know if they guy was ever called by name at any point. Apparently the Mateel Crash ‘Em Playset confused him too.

“I want to see you in your tight green bodysuit.” Well you are the only one.

Sorry, I am tapping out for the night…This movie is insanely long and INSANELY BAD. There is only so much I can take at one time.

Time code: 1 Hr and 10 minutes.

Whoa, whoa…1 Hr and 10 minutes in and Hal finally realizes he can use his new found superhero persona to get chicks, and only then because Discount Moss tells him? Bullshit.

Carol points out the UTTER FUTILITY of Hal’s itty bitty mask. Probably not the first conversation she has had with him like that.

Why was Carol doing paperwork in her office in a black cocktail dress?No seriously…WHY??!!!

Slinky Black Dresses at Inappropriate Times – The Carol Ferris Story.

Carol and Hal have a heart to heart about how much of a colossal fuck up he is, ROMANCE IS A BREWIN’.

WHO IS IN THE OMINOUS CAR WATCHING HAL…oh, just Bobble-head Hector. I guess I should have seen that coming.

“Physical contact allows me to see your memories.” Yes Hector, but your head looks like an elephant scrotum so I doubt people will be lining up to let you touch them.

Senator Dufresne has his son sedated because if there is anything this movie needed it is more time spent NOT RESOLVING SHIT.

Hal is in a wheat field having a life crisis over becoming a superhero. I GIVE UP MOVIE, YOU WIN!!! Perhaps he can spend an hour at this therapist and you can film the whole damn thing!

Bobble-head Hector wakes up strapped to a gurney. One of his kidneys is probably already on the black market.

Would you take telekinetic powers if it meant you ended up looking like Weird Al Yankovic in his fat suit? Good trade or no?

“I shall turn around dramatically to completely expose my back to the villain in case he wants to mind throw shit at me.” Okay, maybe Sinestro was right about Hal being a waste of a ring.

Hector just collapsed of his own accord. Hal Jordan couldn’t even mount an offence on an asthmatic dude with a extra large cranial target to aim for.

Hal and Hector are writhing on the floor while some plot is resolved, thus proving how unimportant to the process they really are.

“Hector disappeared into that smoky patch over there, I am sure that is the last we will see of him.” Sinestro was right, you suck Hal.

OH THANK GOD, ANOTHER EXCITING SCENE OF CRIPPLING SELF-DOUBT.

We have spent more time in this movie reassuring Hal that he can be a Green Lantern than he spent being a Green Lantern. This movie should be called “Hal Jordan Finally Sacks Up”.

Bake your Fear Ring at 350° for 2 hours or until golden and crispy.

I don’t think Hal Jordan is the person I want defending humanity and our right to exist to a jury of our powder blue peers.

He flies all the way back to Oa and all he manages to do is get them to agree to allow him to fight Parallax to the death alone. Couldn’t he have just done that and saved himself the trip? Did he even really need to ask permission at this point, couldn’t he have just flipped them the double bird and gone home?

Hector is now a wheezy mess in a wheelchair. Apparently the scriptwriter thought this was just the challenge that Green Lantern could sink his teeth into.

Hector doesn’t even die by Green Lantern’s hand. I think this movie had a huge plot hole in it originally and Hector was just used to fill it in like spackle. He seemed as surprised about the details of his own life as we were.

Parallax seems entirely made up of black smoke and cheap lighting effects so why did cramming a missile up its ass drive it off?

After spending all movie in a state of crippling self-doubt, Hal has suddenly become massively cocky about the fact that the ring chose him. MAYBE WE WILL FINALLY GET A GOOD MOVIE OUT OF THI…oh, only 10 minutes left. At least it is almost over.

Why is it in every global crisis in modern cinema, the first thing everyone does is hop out of their cars and start milling about on the streets? Then when it all goes sideways everyone starts RUNNING AWAY instead of hopping back in the cars and DRIVING AWAY MUCH FASTER.

Green Lantern gives Parallax a colonoscopy, because he is all about colorectal health.

So is Parallax a smoke monster thing or what? According to the movie he has more mass and is therefore pulled into the sun faster?

Hal Jordan just gave Parallax the fisting of a life time. I think this movie has finally gotten to me.

“Can I train them, or can I train them?” You spent 5 minutes beating his ass down, How does that qualify as training?

“So what happens now?” Well, hopefully this movie ends and we can all move on with our lives.

CREDITS…I MADE IT. HAHAHAHA! I thought I might never see the sun again, or hear the laughter of a child, or brush a rose against my cheek.

End credits scene where Sinestro puts the Fear Ring on for no valid reason. Well, at least we have a nice set-up for the sequel…What do you mean the screenwriter was burned at the stake?

Internet, we need to talk. The click-bait, the videos that could be replaced with two lines of text, the perpetual smug judgement from freelance web writers, the rampant hyperbole that makes everything amazing/shocking/terrifying!!!! Seriously…just stop it.

“This article/video will shock you!” – I have been roaming around the internet for 14 years now, I have seen the 2 girls with the 1 cup and much, much worse. Your video will not raise my pulse in the slightest.

“You will never guess what happens next!” – I have a functioning frontal lobe so I am pretty sure I can guess what happens next, and I bet good money it will either be sappy or stupid.

“Things only 90’s kids will understand!” – Ring pops and Nickelodeon TV aren’t really hard concepts to grasp. Maybe it isn’t that we don’t understand, maybe we just don’t care.

“9 things you shouldn’t do past 30!” – No one needs a website to tell them what to do past 30. If you made it to 30 without dying, becoming a member of a cult, popping out more kids than you could even remotely support or ending up in jail than odds are you have reached a point where you don’t need a website to decide if you are “too old to go clubbing” or “shouldn’t be getting a tattoo at your age because that is super gross”. If you are 30 and you are in a cult, jail, or a trailer full of your offspring then whatever advice they had has come too late.

“Things you are doing WRONG!” – An article tried to tell me I was eating sushi wrong once. I am pretty sure if it ends up in my face hole and gets chewed enough to swallow without cutting off my airflow than I have achieved the act of eating. I have been eating for 34 friggin’ years, I am pretty sure I got the gold star and “meets expectations” on this one a while ago.

“This will restore your faith in humanity!” – Ten minutes delving into YouTube comment sections will take it away again, so wasted effort.

“Here is a list of astonishing things, #6 will astound/amaze/shock/terrify you!” – Then why is it #6? Do you not know how a list works? If it is that astounding/amazing/shocking/terrifying then it should be at #1 and then #1 obviously needs to move down a little. Otherwise, what the hell was the point of bothering with numbers?

“Famous person does something AMAZING! [VIDEO]” – I made the bold assumption that it was a video of the famous person doing the amazing thing, instead it was a variety of clips of the famous person walking around at a red carpet event and having his picture taken while pressing the flesh. Meanwhile, someone narrated 2 paragraphs of this amazing thing he did without citing any reliable sources or providing anything approaching evidence. WHY DID THIS NEED TO BE A VIDEO?!!!!

“This video will change your life!” – All this video will do is eat into my precious data plan on my cell phone.

“15 amazing life hacks!” – 2 actually useful life hacks. 6 solutions to problems that no sane person actually has. 4 things that you could do but will make your home look 100% more tacky than it already does. 3 fixes that we already have perfectly useful consumer products for.

“Where are they now?!” – Probably the same place they were when a different site checked on them for this same article 2 weeks ago.

“Child stars gone bad!” – Lindsey Lohan is #1. Lindsey Lohan is always #1. Unless we are using this new-fangled math that you all invented, in which case she is #6 but she will astound/amaze/shock/terrify you.

“You won’t believe it isn’t photoshopped!” – Unless you are a proven reliable source or are providing some means of authentication then you are right, I won’t believe it. Just telling me I won’t believe it isn’t enough to make me doubt myself.

“Controversial “Skinny Pill” is taking the country by storm!” – Within a year of Viagra hitting the market most of North America knew to subtly inquire about boner pills from their doctor BY NAME. Every comedy act was legally required to have at least one reference to it, Bob Dole was trying to score a free lifetime supply by flogging it. If there really was a skinny pill then every morning news team in the country would be covering it and every home in North America would have a bottle by now. Instead they are trying to sell this through banner ads on sites about child stars going bad and amazing life hacks that someone stole off reddit. Speaking of boners…

“New all-natural pill will enlarge your penis!” – Now, If there was really a penis enlargement pill, I would have bought stock in that company by now. Having bought stock in the company I would be so rich that the size of my penis wouldn’t matter in the slightest. None of that has happened so we can assume your bottle of processed herbs would make a better salad than a penis enlarger.

Also, does it seem likely that I am particularly concerned about how “all-natural” your product is when I want to increase the size of my penis 10-fold? I am pretty sure I wouldn’t care how much mystery science and synthetic chemicals were involved if it actually worked.

Social Media, we need to talk

“95 percent of you won’t like/share this!” – True…that isn’t actually an incentive to like/share it though. 95 percent of people* don’t tie their genitals to the back of a moving vehicle either, doesn’t mean I should try it just to be different.

* Not an actual accurate percentage of non-genital tying population. Used for illustrative purposes only.

“Only my true friends…” – Stop. Stop right there. I don’t want to be friends with someone trying to guilt trip me over posting a status.

“Click like to show respect for our soldiers!” – Great news, we can shut down the veterans hospitals and stop all the widows and orphans payouts, they are all going to live on Facebook likes from now on.

“1 Like = 1 Respect!” – No, no it really doesn’t mean anything like that. No one stops by and hands over all this “Respect” they have harvested on Facebook to all the deserving teachers/soldiers/doctors/police/firemen/sex workers in the photos. If you respect these people you might want to try talking to them about it.

As much good as Netflix pumps out into the world by being a cheap source of quality movies and TV, it is also the purveyor of just as much graveyard time-slot crap, at least here in Canada. Sometimes they just need to pad some numbers or someone offers them cheap rights to something in hopes it will gain cult status, maybe a movie looks good in a synopsis and the stink of its failure is hidden behind high expectations and bankable actors. Hell, it could all be down to individual taste, maybe someone on staff thought it was solid gold. Who knows how it all functions, I don’t work there. What I do know is every once in a while I run into something so bad, it needs to be mocked. Actually, it probably doesn’t NEED to be mocked but I miss our time together, gentle reader. We used to get out more, laugh at silly things and make dick jokes. Me in my boxers and you, faceless behind your wall of internet anonymity.

Anyway, back on point. I was looking for a movie tonight starring Michael Fassbender of young Magneto fame. It was a period piece about Roman soldiers that I had watched and enjoyed before. Sadly, Netflix Canada has stopped offering it for streaming but it did offer up various other titles he had starred in for my viewing pleasure. One called Shame caught my eye, the minimalist Netflix synopsis said it was about a guy with a sex addiction struggling to control himself after his sister moves back in with him. It wasn’t much to go on but I figured there was potential. Other than probably not being safe for work, what did that really tell me though? Would it have interesting things to say about porn and sex addiction? Did they mine the whole thing for cheap laughs before some emotional pay off in the third act?

Nope, not really either of those. At best I would describe it as an hour and a half of Fassbender’s character jerking off and/or having grunty sex with prostitutes strung together by fairly random scenes of him going about a mundane life and arguing with his sister. Obviously I don’t want to spoil this movie for you should you choose to watch it, I hope you enjoy Mr. Fassbender’s cock and unkempt thatch of pubes because I certainly wouldn’t recommend it for any other reason. In the first ten minutes I saw his dick twice and quite literally watched him take a piss. He has also hired a prostitute and then the next 5 minutes were of him staring at a pretty redhead on a subway while the soundtrack had gone off on a soaring symphonic tangent which seemed incongruous with him eye-banging her while she flirted back. She suddenly remembered she is wearing a wedding ring and decided to abandon the train in mid-flirt while Fassbender tries to chase her down in hopes he can introduce her to “Lil’ Mike”.

I want to talk about one of the fucking weirdest scenes in this movie though. Actually the first weird scene is watching Fassbender piss. Like, someone decided to pay him money to walk over to a toilet and take a whizz. It isn’t integral to the story, adds nothing of value to the scene it is in and yet they clearly put careful planning and effort into the scene in order to make it appear natural.

Some might argue that he never really pissed and it was just splashing noises in the bowl but if you watch the scene, despite the actor being turned around you can see the tip of his penis between his thighs and a stream is visible. Either they wasted a huge amount of money on CGI for this one pointless scene, worked really hard at strapping a tube to the guys dick so they could squirt apple juice at the right moment OR they just paid him to take a piss, which just seems easier and cheaper.

Some might argue that if his back is turned than maybe they got a body double for this integral piss scene. Maybe, but that seems even more pathetic. Fassbender had a scene 2 minutes earlier that was clearly him and clearly full frontal nudity. They are obviously paying him well for him to show off his dick and ass in the movie and even simulate sex on numerous occasions so then finding someone with the same build and paying them to strip nude and piss in the toilet seems…like pissing money down the toilet. Ba dum bum.

Now that we have overanalyzed that lets get to the other fucking weird one. The other scene is when he gets caught by his sister jerking off to a cam girl (if you don’t know what that is, don’t google it at work). He sits in his room staring off into space for a while and then decides to give up his porny ways. So he grabs a garbage bag and starts throwing all his porn in it. He grabs a stash from various closets, dressers, drawers. It is all very fast paced and deliberate. He has a very determined expression. Half way through he opens the fridge, pulls out some pasta and chucks it in as well before moving on. It literally looked like he got halfway through this life changing moment, remembered he had week old leftovers in the fridge and just decided to toss it on top.

That isn’t quite right either though. He has the same determined and deliberate look, his body language is still energized and frantic. He clearly blames this, I swear it looks like penne in a tomato sauce, for leading him down a path of perversion. I could even understand if it was some takeout food. Like “Damn your easy convenience for enabling me to spend more time online, jerking it to porn”. It wasn’t takeout though, it was clearly in a cooking pot. This penne had done nothing to this man but nourish him at some point and he threw it on top of his porn with hate in his heart. It wasn’t like he was trying to ruin the porn either, because he ends up with 4 bags of porn and only one gets the pasta on it.

Then for good measure he throws out HIS FUCKING LAPTOP. I mean, it was running Vista so I suppose that might have been part of the issue but it is like he is done with porn so he has NO OTHER USE FOR THIS COMPUTER. That would be like a food addict throwing out his pots and pans because clearly he will never need those again, they only cook bacon.

Actually, the whole cam girl thing makes no sense, but I promise this will be the last scene I will analyze to death. The entire scene starts off with the sister walking in on Fassbender’s character jerking off in the bathroom. He gets awkward and defensive while she mostly seems amused. They have an argument and then he goes to hide in the bathroom for a while. She grabs a beer from the fridge, meanders over to his laptop and taps on it to kill the screensaver. On it she finds said cam girl, sitting around waiting. Cam girl talks dirty for a bit, mistaking the sister for a girlfriend and wanting to keep her billable hours rolling. Fassbender comes into the room, slaps the laptop closed and disappears to his bedroom for a sulk before he does the spring porn cleaning I mentioned earlier.

So starting with the obvious question, Why in the hell is he paying this cam girl to wait around WHILE HE GOES TO THE BATHROOM TO BEAT OFF? That would be like going to a movie and spending half your night out by the concession stand so you can eat your popcorn…only more stupid somehow. The laptop IS A FUCKING LAPTOP! He could easily drag it to the bathroom with him, or the bedroom if that was a little too creepy. Hell, he could have choked the chicken at the kitchen table, what it lacked in privacy it would have made up for in A LIVE WOMAN ON HIS SCREEN TOUCHING HERSELF. You don’t read a porn magazine just so you can go to the next room and jerk off to your memories of it, no matter how much easier the clean up is in the new room.

The next question is WHY IS THE CAM GIRL STILL THERE? The guy leaves for so long that the screensaver comes on but she waited around to see if he wanted to have a nice post masturbation chat afterwards? Was she hoping he would answer the automated customer satisfaction survey if she stayed on the line? Did she just want to ask WHY THE FUCK he left the room to go masturbate too? Was it gnawing away at her mind as much as it did mine?

This probably seemed like a good movie when it was in a pitch meeting. It attracted a couple of pretty decent actors who were putting effort into their roles. It even paid them well enough that they both got naked for it. Which, pissing scene aside, was a pretty necessary part of a story about sex addiction. What it ended up as is an hour and a half of a porno with the soundtrack swapped with Lord of the Rings, which left 10 whole minutes for the emotional pay-off before tacking on an ambiguous ending and credits rolled. The whole thing was such a missed opportunity to be funny or clever or relatable or even just informative. Join me next time I waste a Saturday watching something awful from the terrifying depths of Netflix. Possibly something involving sharks and extreme weather but that isn’t even at the heady quality heights of Sharknado.

I recently ran across a repellant article on my Facebook newsfeed and there is a good chance you saw it kicking around as well. It was called The Case Against Female Self-Esteem. It was pretty much exactly that, a rant about how women with high self-esteem were a bad thing. Mostly bad for the author and men like him, although he also tried to make the case it was bad for the women with high self-esteem, but I doubt they are buying it. Since I haven’t written anything in a while and this particular article is ripe for mockery, I figured I would take a look at it. Do I really need to? I doubt it. I don’t see strong, independent women letting this guy phase them in the slightest and the type of guys that make up the core audience for an article like this have already made up their minds and closed them up tight. That won’t stop me, blogging is all about spewing opinions out into the void to be largely ignored.

Before I hand you a link to his page all willy-nilly I think I need to prepare you a little bit. I did a bare minimum of internet searching on the author and it seems he has a variety of books on Amazon with a range of offensive titles that the blog displays prominently in hopes of getting sales. The guy is clearly from the Ann Coulter/Rush Limbaugh school of media marketing. Be offensive for the sake of being offensive because for all the people who will hate you there will be a small group doing a fist pump at their desk going “Yaaaaa! This guy writes stuff I only think about”. Much like Ann and Rush, you really have to wonder how much he buys into his own bullshit and how much is just for show, to appeal to the lowest form of person so they will snap up his latest offerings. Everyone else is just so much fodder for his continuing crusade against good taste and social sensitivity. So as you head over to read this post of his remember that if it makes you so offended that you want to urinate on his future grave then he got what he wanted and considers it a job well done. Link for the linkless.

(I am not going to go line by line trying to refute all of this. First of all, it would take up too much of a lovely three-day weekend and secondly, some of it is so repugnant that it isn’t worth dignifying with a response. Some of this will no doubt stir up a lot of anger and disgust in you but I don’t need to try to turn that anger into words any more than you need me to justify your feelings on it.)

Let’s take a look at some of it and my opinions on it, feel free to leave me any additions, comments or opinions in the comment section below.

“From the moment they’re old enough to speak, girls in America are bombarded with propaganda that artificially boosts their self-esteem. They’re told that they’re shpecialand you-nique because they have an extra X chromosome. They’re told that they’re smart, that they can do anything, that they deserve respect merely for existing. They’re encouraged to derive self-worth not from their inherent feminine nature but from their college degree, their job or the other illusory trappings of achievement in a man’s world.”

He manages to suggest that modern women are encouraged to find self-worth just from being women AND that they are encouraged not to derive self-worth from their feminine nature but rather from education and careers IN THE SAME DAMN PARAGRAPH…AND HE ISN’T HAPPY ABOUT EITHER. Apparently he has put a lot of thought into this.

“In the world of men, respect—and by extension self-esteem—is based on actually achieving something of worth or having some kind of skill or talent.”

First off, respect and self-esteem are REALLY not that interchangeable. The respect he mentions is external, the regard that others have for you and/or your work. Self-esteem is the overall emotional evaluation of your own worth, pretty obviously internal. One can certainly gather self-esteem from the respect people show you but it is only one source from which self-esteem is derived. Others include self-confidence, self-respect, self awareness and acceptance…as well as delusions of grandeur, narcissism, wealth, sexual conquests and the ability to buy shiny, expensive shit. Some of that is probably more healthy than others.

Point is that other people’s opinions of us in not the sole deciding factor in our internal sense of worth. If it was than the original author would no doubt be curled up in the fetal position somewhere, slowly rocking back and forth and whimpering as much of the internet tries to suggest he do something anatomically impossible with his head and his rectum. Instead he is trading insults with people on twitter and having a good laugh about members of the public wishing painful lesions upon his most private of parts. Obviously he is getting his self-esteem elsewhere.

“The same goes for having a job. The vast majority of girls work useless fluff jobs: government bureaucrats, human resources and various other makework positions that exist to give them the illusion of independence. The jobs that keep the country running—tradesmen, miners, farmers, policemen, the military—are still overwhelmingly dominated by men.”

…says the guy who writes a blog. Can you really try to claim fraternity with the tradesmen and farmers of the world if your contribution to society is being an ass on the internet to drive your book sales?

“If every girl was fired from her job tomorrow, elementary schools would have to shut down for a couple days, but otherwise life would go on as usual. If every man lost his job tomorrow, the country would collapse.”

Except if every woman (they are called women, girls are the ones in those school yards he isn’t allowed within 50 feet of) was fired from her job tomorrow it would probably devastate the health care industry, so try not to get sick. Seriously though, it is like this guy lives in the 50’s. I have not had a job in the last 15 years in which women have not made up at least a respectable percent of the workforce, including most of my time in construction/demolition. I wondered if perhaps he was in a very male dominated career but the only thing listed in his About Us section was hitchhiking across the States and writing a book about it. Not exactly a growth industry no matter what gender you are.

Also, let’s not knock the fine people currently spending their days caring for and educating our children so we don’t have to. With the loss of educators and daycare workers we would end up with uneducated, feral youth roaming the streets with nothing to do. Surely they all can’t start blogging on the internet.

“Given their lack of physical strength, a woman on her own should be frightened as hell without men to protect her. If society were to collapse, all the Strong, Independent Women™ who read Jezebeland xoJane would last about five minutes before they either found a man to cling onto or got raped and killed.”

…or found a gun. I mean, this is exactly what guns are for, overcoming an opponent no matter their physical strength. They are the great equalizer, that is their purpose, it is why cops don’t run around fighting crime with broadswords. Admittedly, training and experience with firearms goes a long way but even an absolute amateur with a loaded pistol is still a force to be reckoned with, just ask any police officer who has had to face one down. I am not even really a gun enthusiast but it would certainly be the first thing on my shopping list if society collapsed.

Actually, I find it a little suspicious that the first thing he thinks that will happen if society collapses is that we men will all be looking for someone to rape/murder. If society did collapse I think the first thing that would happen is people would try to rebuild it. We all like our clean sheets, hot showers and jalapeño poppers too much to want to give them up and join roving gangs of brigands.

“Part of our identity as men based in women needing us, if not necessarily in a material sense, then in an emotional one, though material and emotional vulnerability often go hand in hand. That female insecurity is a crucial ingredient for unlocking our inner masculine instincts.”

So the heart of his little rant is that women should feel vulnerable and needy so men like him can feel like a Real Man™ and take care of them. Question for you, doesn’t that make him the vulnerable and needy one? Answer: Yes, yes it fucking does. He is essentially admitting he needs someone else to bolster his ego and self-esteem on a regular basis by depending on him (which might explain why he confused respect and self-esteem earlier). He then goes on to suggest that this is the natural order of things and this is what all men want and need out of a relationship. On behalf of men everywhere who aren’t interested in this nonsense, can I just say “Ewwwww!”

I imagine coming home to that every night in a relationship and it just makes me tired, bored and irritated. Constantly badgered by another person’s problems and questions that they seem incapable of dealing with on their own, I get enough of that training new employees at work. The feeling that you needed to have all the answers, that you couldn’t rely on the other person to have your back. Even if this was the type of relationship I had, I would be working hard to try and help the person gain the skills and confidence needed to become independent, not basking in the glow of their undeserved awe.

“When I first went on a date with the only girl I would have ever married, her hands were trembling in nervousness. She later admitted that she was openly intimidated by me and the idea that I found her attractive.”

I obviously don’t have any specifics about this relationship other than he speaks of it in the past tense. He had what he wanted and couldn’t keep it, so that should tell you a lot of what you need to know right there.

Confidence doesn’t give men erections; vulnerability does.

Ummm, if we are going to be honest, boobs is probably the realistic answer. After that it is down to individual taste but I am pretty sure telling women that vulnerability gives you an erection will make you seem like a serial killer.

“If I’m not the center of a girl’s world, I’m not going to be in her world period.”

Jesus man, how needy are you?

“I can already see the Jizzabellers angrily pounding away at their Macbooks: “You just can’t handle a Strong, Independent Woman™!” We men can handle you just fine; the problem is that we don’t want to.”

If he could stop speaking for our gender as a whole, that would be great.

“Girls don’t want the six-figure cubicle job, the shiny Brooklyn 2BR, the master’s degree, the sexual liberation, none of it. They want to becollectively led back to the kitchen, told to make a nice big tuna sandwich with extra mayo and lettuce, then swatted on the ass as we walk out the door.”

WHAT THE FUCK IS WITH THE SANDWICH THING? You can’t read an internet comment section or twitter feed without some ass demanding that an imaginary women come to his house to make him a sandwich. He is always screaming it to the internet because clearly no sane woman is within earshot. Seriously though, when I reached an age where I was capable of holding a butter knife properly it was pretty much a given that I would be making my own damn sandwiches. When I see a grown man demanding life present him with someone to make him a sandwich I start to think he might need help with wiping himself or getting dressed. If the author is the one who needs someone dependent on him, shouldn’t he be the one making the sandwiches. If he is supposed to be the manly, capable provider, then why can’t he even seem to feed himself?

Now that I am done with this nonsense of an article I am going to make a nice big tuna sandwich with extra mayo and pickles WITH MY OWN TWO DAMN HANDS LIKE A GROWN-UP.

How do you end up with a label like Most Dangerous Woman on the Internet? Got me, I am not sure I am even the most dangerous person in this room…and I live here alone.

Seema Kalia won the moniker by exposing corruption at Trinity School, a three hundred year old private school in the heart of New York City…well, an area of New York City anyway. After blowing the whistle on trustee fraud, she was dismissed as an “unhinged housewife” by one of the defendants, damaging her career and affecting her personal life. As she sets herself to take on the trustees, their law firm and various news websites defaming her name, Wachtell and the other parties under investigation have used her divorce proceedings to strike back in the most despicable manner possible.

What do you do to piss off The Most Dangerous Woman on the Internet? You abuse your power and authority to take her children away from her for the better part of a year.

If my heart wasn’t already clogged full of pastrami, it would be breaking right now.

What do you do to piss off The Rancid Monke? Screw with people’s lives and hurt children. Which is why I am lending my voice and blog (which is usually not this high brow) to get the word out.

Below are some juicy public documents pertaining to the proceedings in which opposing counsel asked 125 questions about the federal investigation into Wachtell Lipton, Manhattan District Attorney Cy Vance Jr. and Trinity School. Only 3 questions were asked pertaining to her children during the entire DIVORCE trail (masters of subtlety these people are not). Some of the pertinent information in the court transcripts have been highlighted in case you aren’t the sort of person who enjoys slogging through long, dull court proceedings. Actually, I would be more concerned if you were the sort of person who enjoys slogging through long, dull court proceedings. You should probably get outside more.

Folks, if you are only going to become enraged over one abuse of power and injustice this year, let it be this one (because I worked really hard on writing it, I had to use a Thesaurus and everything).

It’s worth noting that after dragging the private school through legal infamy, Wachtell Lipton’s main partner, Martin Lipton is at the centre of a controversy about board governance issues at the storied New York University. Lipton is the Chairman of the Board at NYU, and together with his hand picked President, John Sexton, is trying to push through a large list of aggressive commercial changes at the university. After five NYU faculties recently had a no confidence vote in Sexton, Lipton refused to listen.